Study On The Spatial Differences And Influencing Factors Of Poor Rural Households' Livelihood Based On The Expanded Sustainbale Livelihood Framework

Poverty has been a long-term problem sprout with the development of human society,which makes it a common mission of human beings to get poverty eradicated.As the most populous country in the world,China has been encountering a chronic poverty situation which substantially impacted large impoverished areas.To achieve the goal of finishing building a moderately prosperous society by 2020,a precise poverty alleviation strategy has been launched in the anti-poverty campaign in the new stage.By the end of 2016,the national poverty-stricken population has been reduced to 43.35 million from the original 165.67 million in the end of 2010,which is a phased achievement for poverty alleviation efforts.However,since the extent of the poverty affected places is vast,the task to relieve them from poverty is quite formidable.As a core task of poverty alleviation,improving the quality of rural poor households' livelihood is of great significance to promote social economic development in rural areas.For poor population living in poor mountainous areas,a low stock of livelihood capital,a relatively less feasible capability of livelihood means and the low product efficiency makes it the prime reason for the long-term regional poverty.The key problem to be urgently overcome in this kind of area is to find an efficient way to alleviate living quality and steadily shake off poverty.This research study is conducted based on the idea of sustainable livelihood,the spatial differences and influential factors of poor rural households.It grasps the differences and general rules among some typical rural poverty,and can be employed as a reference for theoretical and technical methods for poverty problems and farmers' livelihood research,explores optimal control programs,and also provides scientific practical support for research area and other similar areas of study.The sustainable livelihood(hereinafter abbreviated to SL)framework has now been extensively used in the study of series of “Human-Earth” problems,such as the rural poverty reduction,environmental protection and the sustainable use of natural resources,since it can better simulate the process of rural households' livelihood and development,and can better understand the interrelationship between an individual household and a regional environment.Among all the SL frameworks,the one of Department For International Development(DFID)is the most representative and thus is in the core status in the livelihood study in China.However,similar frameworks provide just an integrated and standardized research approach.Aiming at the development trend of multidimensionalization and diversification of poverty research at the present stage,there still needs to be a further understanding of the connotation of poverty,which helps get these frameworks adjusted and expanded.In addition,the focus and view of existing studies are relatively single dimensional and superficial,as well as lack systematical empirical study,mainly displayed in the following aspects: first,it is mainly focused on only one aspect of livelihood study,but is lacking in the further understanding of its complexity and institutional obstacles.Second,there is insufficient recognition of geographic attributes in the poor rural region,while few have studied the influence of geographic matter.Third,the classification of the means of livelihood is limited to the relative criterion.Meanwhile,the quantitative analysis is still limited.Forth,there is lack of study with regards to the efficiency measure pertinent to the means of livelihood.Based on the research,home and abroad,on theories about poverty and sustainable livelihood,this study will introduce a concept called livelihood efficiency,and construct the expanded SL framework.This study,from the aspects of elements of development framework,which are applied to the study of poor rural households,takes the destitute households in the process of targeted poverty alleviation in Shizhu County as the study objects.Combining the sample investigation data,this study applies many computing techniques on the software platform like ArcGIS,SPSS,GeoDa,Stata and MaxDEA,such as GWR regression model,curve fitting model,logistic model,DEA model,Tobit model,spatial mismatch analysis,to study the individual and spatial differences in livelihood capital,livelihood means and livelihood efficiency of these poor farmers.It also excavates the general law of factors affecting the individual and spatial aspects of rural poor households' livelihood,and explores the interactive mechanism between the internal factors of these households' livelihood and the external environment,as well as the optimizations to alleviate poverty in the research area,attempting to provide some advice to promote the anti-poverty work and social economy development in rural areas.The study contents and main conclusions include:(1)Taking livelihood capital as the study point for generalized material poverty,this study,based on the features of rural poor households in Shizhu County,constructs a target system for the their livelihood capital,to measure and analyze the differences of their livelihood capital in different spatial parts,which makes the spatial difference an important factor.The result shows that: 1)The livelihood capital of poor households in Shizhu County is positively correlated with their income level,but is negatively related to their medical costs,and there is no apparent relationship with their housing conditions or educational costs.2)On the village level,the livelihood capital mainly divided into the single capital deficit type and the multiple capital deficit type,which are characterized by the distribution of “large dispersion and small concentration”,and there are certain spatial agglomeration characteristics.The hotspot areas are mainly concentrated near the traffic trunk line.3)At the regional level,the stock of livelihood capital is reduced in the following order: region SI> region HI2> region MI2> region HI1> region MI1.The inventory of livelihood capital in the region MI1,a region lacking of industrial support,is at the bottom of the list.4)The main factors of spatial difference in livelihood capital are composed of road density in rural area(RD),the location level(LL),proportion of the three kinds of left-behind people(PHS),the relief amplitude(RA)and per capita cultivated farmland(PCL).But different spatial units may get influenced in different degree.(2)Considering the means of livelihood as the factor to analyze its dynamic process characters,this research studies the characteristics of means of livelihood and its spatial difference in the process of non-agriculture and livelihood diversification,as well as the influential factors for poor rural households to choose different means of livelihood.The study shows that: 1)There is a relatively high degree of multiple-occupation rate and nonagriculturization in Shizhu County.Generally,the more they get non-agriculturized,the more income they will gain.2)The degree of non-agriculturization is higher in villages radiated by suburban towns(region SI)and villages growing mainly grain and oil crops(region HI1,region MI1).The spatial difference is partly related to factors like urban economic radiation,rural industrial level and structure,and spatial connectivity.3)The diversification of livelihood is mainly developed in the following process: phase III?II?I?IV.The spatial difference is shown in the different influential degree of nonagriculture in livelihood diversification,as well as the different heterogeneity of livelihood in high income regions.4)Poor rural households' livelihood capital structure impacts their choice for means of livelihood in the following aspects: the amount of farming land has a positive relationship with the proportion of agricultural production;it is more possible to develop multiple jobs if there is more labor force in the family,while the old and sick one always working in the field;education has a positive effect to prompt the working in non-agricultural industry;the households in community organizations,such as the cooperative or skill training club for the alleviation of poverty,are more likely to work in agriculture,while the households who are highly connected with outside society are more likely to take part in non-agricultural activities;except the direct acting factors like the number and quality of labor force,the households enjoying the minimum living guarantee are also influenced in some other indirect factors,like the medical costs and low degree of outside contact.(3)Taking livelihood efficiency as a way to measure their deficiency of capability,this study,based on the analysis of livelihood efficiency's connotation,measures and analyzes the livelihood efficiency in different means of livelihood and their spatial difference.And it studies the determinant factors for livelihood efficiency from the aspects of both individual and spatial area.The study shows that: 1)Nearly half of the merely agricultural workers present a feature as self production and sale,which is to the disadvantage of livelihood capital accumulation.The scale efficiency of non-agricultural households are relatively higher,while the level of human capital is the main constraint for their employment gains.And there is a negative correlation between the basic-livingallowanced level for the basic-living-allowanced poor households and their livelihood capital and livelihood efficiency.2)The special difference in livelihood efficiency at the village level is largely related to the level of industrial development in the village.The hotspots are mainly concentrated in the economic crop leading villages in the eastern middle mountain area of the county.3)From the individual perspective,the subjective decisions,objective conditions and the local context and some other affecting factors together hamper the optimization of people or materials in this region,which is the main factor for the low livelihood efficiency.4)From the spatial aspect,the spatial difference is mainly influenced by the sowing intensity of crops(CSI),the proportion of migrant workers(PMW),and the fragmentation of cultivated land(FCL).Each region is influenced to a different degree.(4)Taking the binary relation between livelihood efficiency and livelihood capital as a way to measure the autonomous ability of poverty alleviation,this study,based on the analysis of interactive mechanism of livelihood efficiency and livelihood capital,evaluates the autonomous ability of poverty alleviation by analyzing the spatial relation.According to the measurement result,it identifies the key optimization area and individuals,and also discusses the optimizing control measurements.The results shows that: 1)For the individual,except the lack of livelihood capital stocking,the deficiency of some special livelihood capital makes it unable to work in a coupling system and thus leads to the low livelihood efficiency and the inability to take advantage of its capital strength,which is also the important factor for poverty.2)The proportion of possible households with autonomous ability to get rid of poverty shows in descending order in the following region: MI2,HI2,SI,HI1,MI1.The key factor for a village to lift themselves from poverty is to develop an effective economic industry and cover the poor households.3)After setting the optimization target in each region and making it clear of each village's shortage,this study talks about the relevant optimizing control measures: first,aim at the shortage of its livelihood capital,increase the total livelihood capital,and improve its structural coordination;second,optimize the production structure and production form to develop the suitable level of the means of livelihood;third,provide the sustaining support for the backward area,and create a good external environment for poor households' livelihood.Innovation points of this study include: 1)Based on the DFID SL framework,it leads in the concept and connotation of “livelihood efficiency” to construct the expanded SL framework,which has enriched the research perspectives and theory system when studying the problem of rural households' livelihood and poverty.2)This research takes the opportunity to analyze the individual and spatial differences of poor rural households' livelihood,as well as discusses the interactive mechanism between the inner system and external environment.3)Integrated many theories in different subjects,combining the microscopic background,this study enriches the content system and technological means for studying the problem of poor households' livelihood and poverty.